[Guest]

Howdy all. I have aquired a Philco 48-1270, which is in pretty rough shape. My 11 year old boy and I are taking it on as a project. To start with, all the wires leading from the chassis to the components have all been snipped and robbed. The guy who I got it from found it in a cabin he had bought and was cleaning out. originally, he wanted to try to restore it but after moving in, found he had no room for it, so he stuck it out in the yard for a couple weeks, uncovered and in the rain at the time, before he told me if I wanted it to come and get it. It's a shame, but now the cabinet is falling apart around the innerds. If we can get the radio and phono to work, I'll build a mock cabinet(as close to ariginal as I can) to house the relic. We have figured out most of the wiring due to the minute pieces left sticking out of the plugs and such. Where we are running in to problems is hooking up the phono. We have a cloth covered coaxil cable coming off the phono and one also coming off the chassis, but the two of them don't match in color or size. Not finding any other wires of this type coming out of the chassis, this has us stumped. I did get a copy of the scimattics off the internet but the wiring diagram might as well be greek...lol. I do have a photo fact pamphlet on the way. As you can probably tell, this is the first project of this nature I have tried to tackle. Any advice or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Also, being a greenhorn in these old radios, I've been reading some other posts and hearing alot about cleaning out "can caps" and "tar boats". Would you be kind enough to enlighten me on what they are, what they look like, and if they are a concern on this philco? I'm not really looking for restoring the value of this peice. I like antiques and this would be a great addition to my basement bar( wife calls it my "Man Cave"...lol) if we can get it going. Thanks, Jim.

[planigan]

Tracksoup, hi. Fast answers to your questions: The coaxial lead are from the phone cartridge and are not the same as the other pair which supply the AC to the phonograph motor. Can caps usually refers to electrolytic capacitors in an aluminum can mounted on chassis, tar buckets usually a tin/sheetmetal box containing caps and or resistors filled with a black wax (tar) You may also run across capacitor blocks which were unique to Philco. These blocks contained caps and resistors and also served as a terminal strip. One word of caution, these set contain high voltages (in your set 250+DC and 120VAC) which can be lethal. Caution should be taken before working on them. Also, until you have at least replaced the rectifier caps, don't plug in the set, you could burn out the Xfrmr which may be irreplacable. Check sites like antigueradios.com and nostalgiaair.com and go through back posts. There is a lot of information to pick up before plugging in. I'm sure more members will jump in here now that its started. Your request is actually quite a tall order for any one member to handle. PL

[rghines1]

Howdy all. I have aquired a Philco 48-1270, which is in pretty We have figured out most of the wiring due to the minute pieces left sticking out of the plugs and such. Where we are running in to problems is hooking up the phono. We have a cloth covered coaxil cable coming off the phono and one also coming off the chassis, but the two of them don't match in color or size. Not finding any other wires of this type coming out of the chassis, this has us stumped. I did get a copy of the scimattics off the internet but the wiring diagram might as well be greek...lol. Thanks, Jim.

Hi Jim,

The phono uses an impedance matching transformer that was likely mounted inside cabinet near the speaker. The phono cables plug into to this. Hope you still have the cabinet. The phono pickup is a magnetic type with low impedance but tubes typically have a high input impedance. Impedance matching give maximum power transfer and improves fidelity.

You are taking on a tough project and wish you well.

Richard

[planigan]

Jim, I was in a little rush the other dayso heres a little more advice. I had some background in electronic in high school (electrical tech diploma) and for about three year thereafter. I had built from kits a radio, two hifi amps and then a stereo amp. After that I was away from electronics for many years when I fell into a situation where I was asked to look at and see if I could get working a Philco 37-650 console set. I remove chassis and started to poke around with out really knowing what I was doing. I found this site, then antiqueradio and nostalgiaair and started to go through the forums and back on them for a years worth of topics. I must have spent about a month at that and it started to sink in as to how to go about, safely, restoring one of these old sets. On thing I soon realized is that I was starting with a bruiser. Sorry to say but so are you. You will have to get a clear copy of the schematic first thing. Then familiarize your self with the various components. Learn how to identify resistor values and power ratings, capacitor (condensors) values both microfarads and voltage rating, coils, transformers (sometimes referred to as coils), tube sockets and the pin numbers (read from underneath and clockwise from key 1,2,3,4,- ) and a host of other little stinkers. If you have some basic skills in radio work thats a big plus. If you do not, you have your work cut out for you. Thats a nice set and should bring a lot of pleasure in restoring and listening to it.If your serious in taking it on I'm willing to give you the benefit of what little I know. I tend to be more on the practical, hands on type and not heavy on theory but there are many on here who are very knowledgeable and would enjoy helping you. That's right I said enjoy and they will although at times they may get fustrated with the questions they will come through.
Decisions yours, will be here in any event. PL

[Guest]

I finally took some pictures for the before stages of the restoration.





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[Guest]

I had already taken the chassis and anttana out and restrung the radio dial.





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[Guest]

Of coarse this is my first time posting pictures so they aren't in the order I had planned...






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[Guest]

The phono looked to be in good shape.






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[Guest]

The phono has a tag saying Webster Chicago....Is this an after market replacement of the original or did philco co. just use that brand of phono for there radios at the time?







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[Guest]

Hi PL, Thanks for the replies and info. I don't have any experience in this field, unfortunately, but I am a fast learner. I am generally pretty good at figuring things out on my own ( I have a funny "common sense" that way ), but my common sense this time told me I'd better get help on this or I was going to screw this up. So I am all ears and open minded on this project. I just received a good copy of a photo fact pamphlet with a good, readable parts list, well labled pictures of the chassis and parts, and scamattics. Before I go any further, I will be studying this and working on my "vocabulary" to better understand the help we do get and greatly appreciate. I did find a local radio repair man that stocks all the tubes I will need. He may also be able to get some other parts I may need....Hopefully. I see in other posts mentioning different types of testers they use. I do have a decent multimeter that measures AC and DC volts and amps and ohms. What else will we need? I know this a pretty tall order, but I am more of a hands on, If I see it I can understand it kind of guy v.s. a read and understand scamattics kind of guy. So it would benefit me a great deal if I could see a picture of the opened back side of a complete 48-1270 to go off of. But I'm not waiting on this by any means. I've been studying the scamattics and parts list trying to make heads or tails of it. It'll come eventually. Thanks again for your help and I'll be back.

Hi Richard, thanks for your reply on the phono hook up. I am apperantly missing the "impedance matching transformer". I was wishing on luck that all the parts were here on this thing.. go figure. I'm going through the diagrams, parts list, and scamattics to see what else I may be missing. Thanks again, I'm sure I'll be back on here soon with more questions.

Jim.

[dberman51]

That turntable is a 3-speed unit and looks like it has a stereo crystal or ceramic cartridge installed. It is clearly not the original unit. The turntable looks like it may be from about 1951 and the cartridge from the 1960s. If the cartridge is ceramic it might still work, just may need a new stylus (needle). That type of stylus was as common as dirt and should be easy to get even today. If the cartridge is crystal it is likely bad, but easy to replace with ceramic.

You will not need (in fact can't use) the input transformer mentioned in an earlier post.

-David

[Guest]

Thanks for that info David. So with out the transformer would it still hook up to the chassis in the same place? The wires were snipped but I did find a coaxil wire coming out of the chassis and a similar one off the phono. They were different in color and slightly different in size, but being that the phono was an aftermarket replacement would explain that. thanks.

Jim

[dberman51]

The phono cartridge could be connected where the output of the missing transformer would have gone. But it's hard to be sure -- I only have the nostalgiaair schematic and it is very hard to read, the phono connections didn't scan well. Plus there is a funky scratch eliminator circuit with its own tube. I'm not sure how useful that will prove to be. I'm sure we can help you experiment with the best place to connect the phono, once you have the radio working.

-David